Lighting

Director/Cinematographer Ben Dolphin has plenty of experience working in extreme conditions, such as shooting underwater in limestone caves in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula for Televisa. And although he’s an expert in Unilux lighting, HD cameras and high-speed Photo-Sonics, he ironically faced an extreme challenge while shooting his short film ARISING on a Cine Magic soundstage in his own backyard: New York City. With a premiere on Hulu and iTunes, and screenings at various international festivals, Dolphin’s beautifully lit film features nine near-naked dancers flying, diving and dancing through an 8-foot-wide waterfall.

Emmy-winning Cinematographer Donald A. Morgan, ASC chose Litepanels, a Vitec Group brand, as the lighting source for his documentary on the power of healing and discovering the power within. The project, shot during an international HADO convention in Japan, centers around Dr. Masaru Emoto, his teaching of HADO, and his incredible research with water crystals that demonstrate water consciousness. Because Morgan and producer Lindsay Noel Kemp would be moving quickly, he knew his equipment had to be fast and flexible. Morgan needed to be able to shoot within 10 minutes for interviews, so he used the Sony EX1 camera and Litepanels’ 1x1s and MicroPro.

Steve Fong is the creative director for Citizen Group, a San Francisco production house with a number of high profile clients. In 2009, one of these clients, the Center for Creative Land Recycling, commissioned a documentary about the legendary Route 66 highway that, before the onset of the Interstate freeway system, was the route people used to drive from Chicago to Los Angeles.

When first-time Filmmaker Kiran Deol set out to shoot a documentary, she didn’t make it easy on herself. Her film Woman Rebel, which is currently screening on HBO2 over the next year, has as its backdrop the controversial 10-year revolution in Nepal, when women made up 40 percent of the guerrilla army fighting against the government. The film follows the story of one of these women –– codename “Silu” –– on her unlikely journey from the jungle all the way to the halls of the Parliament of England.

Cinematographer John Zilles has shot many commercials for such companies as Walmart, Toyota and Pizza Hut, and he describes his new $2 million Sprite commercial as “one of the biggest, most interesting and challenging jobs I’ve had to light and shoot in 20 years of doing commercials.”